"now that I have some time to think…"

Autobiographical

The coyotes that roam the canyons begin their serenades in outcast moments. They keep no schedule. For a while they deserted me and roamed, haunting other streets and other canyons with their cries. I almost didn’t notice their return with my headphones on late and my double-paned windows keeping me isolated from nature.

But the weather is warm and the windows are open, and neighbors regularly sound the alert on our neighborhood internet bulletin board with every coyote sighting, as if they had spotted a spacecraft or an honest politician. They agonize over every pet who has been terrorized or has disappeared suddenly, blaming the coyotes, not thinking maybe the cat or dog is an escapee.

We are not there yet, but summer is on the way, and there will be hot August nights when I lie in bed and feel the sweat trickle down my back, and the silence will get deeper even with the windows wide open. In that silence, I love to hear their song begin– one and then one more and then the chorus builds to a manic crescendo that sometimes stops in a moment as if the strict maestro has whipped his baton across the horizon.

With them gone, I feel loneliness creep in and wonder if this will be a night when insomnia is my only companion, and if I will while the night away with only the silence and my thoughts. I lay still for an hour and then pad to the kitchen in the dark for water and to stare out the garden window where the moonlight provides weak, liquid light that spreads across the yard.

I strain to listen, but the choir has packed their things and gone home. I’m left alone with the silence and the dark. I let them fill me as they do so many nights. Solitary man. One can learn to love the silence and the dark.

On January 31, I said goodbye to Wellbutrin. After being my internal houseguest for the past 12 years or so, I decided it had overstayed its welcome. It was time for it to go.

Starting on an anti-depressant felt like a momentous decision at the time. But then, I was subject to deep funks when I’d be overwhelmed as a teacher with stacks of ungraded papers and grades coming due. I was struggling with the transition as my wife and I became empty-nesters. Retirement was on the horizon and I was concerned how I as going to handle not working for the first time since I was 13 years old.

When I began taking the drug though, I couldn’t really tell if it was helping me or not. Maybe the ups and downs smoothed out a bit. Maybe some of those transitions were a little easier. Maybe when I hit stretches of depression, they were shorter and shallower than they would have been without the medication.

But back in March when I began having prolonged problems with dizziness, I began to examine every medication I was taking and eliminating any drug or supplement that I wasn’t absolutely sure that I needed. I banished a couple of herbal supplements and an over-the-counter antihistamine, my melatonin was long gone, and the last remaining target was the Wellbutrin.

I knew I’d need to consult with a Kaiser psychiatrist about the process of tapering off which I imagined to be a lengthy process, but it turned out to take only two weeks. In week one, I split the dosage into taking 1/2 a pill twice a day; week two eliminated one of those doses and by week three, I was off.

I would love to tell you that I’m sailing through the post-anti-depressant period without a hitch, but its affected me about as much as I feared it might. I mean, I had it on my mind for over a year to take this step, but kept talking myself out of it because I did not want to invite any new difficulties into my life that the pills might be (without me being entirely aware) fending off.

After a week or so, I noticed that I felt a bit like an exposed nerve. I felt a heightened sensitivity to people and situations around me. I was more irritable, more negative. Any kind of slight, real or perceived, hurt like a paper cut. I could feel myself withdraw and felt even more invisible than usual as I moved about my little world.

My sense of loneliness increased. Not critically. It’s just easy, as a quiet person, to become a little more quiet. Another 5%. Maybe 10%.

Its been a over three weeks now, and I’ve learned that I need to give my body and mind time to adjust. Three weeks isn’t much, and I’ve asked a lot out of my body, mind, and spirit over the past fifteen months. Quitting alcohol, ending the anti-depressants and other medications–it takes a toll. I’ve learned that I need to be patient and let the changes roll through me. I need to stay steady and not drift too far from the people and the practices that sustain me. I know that it can take months–not just weeks.

I’m reading a book right now called LaRose by Louise Erdrich who describes one fragile character’s waking moment this way: “Every morning, she floated to consciousness on that same disintegrating raft.” I was so struck by that image that I wrote it down not wanting to lose it.

My raft is in better shape than that. I know I have people looking out for me and every day, I work to take care of myself. I can just feel the raft being a little more shaky these days.

It was one year ago today that I was sitting in my doctor’s office and he said to me, “I think you should give up alcohol–entirely.” I’m sure it was the stricken and horrified expression on my face that forced him to add, “…for at least two weeks, until you can come back for a re-check.”

I had come in because I was having repeated bouts with atrial fibrillation, and while I had realized some time before that alcohol could be a trigger for a-fib, I had refused to admit that it might be the trigger.

I told him, “I really don’t know if I can.”

I did not and do not consider myself to be an alcoholic, but I certainly had become alcohol dependent. All I could think about, sitting with my doctor, was how much my life would have to change if I gave up my nightly “beer time.” But suddenly, I had a very concrete reason to abstain. Suddenly, it seemed like I was besieged by commercials promoting a-fib medication that reminded me that “a-fib is the leading cause of heart attack and stroke in men over 65.” Since I was two months away from turning 65, I felt like the ads were mocking me–rubbing salt in the wounds.

I made it through two weeks and sure enough, my heart seemed to be settling down. Two weeks became six and on December 20, 2017 I wrote a piece called Trying Out Sobriety reflecting on what I had learned after six weeks of abstinence. Today, makes it fifty-two weeks since I gave up alcohol.

Last Monday, I was meeting with my addiction medicine therapist, a woman who has been an invaluable source of care, insight, and support throughout this process. She asked how I intended to celebrate one year of sobriety. I told her that I didn’t plan to do anything. Making a big deal about sticking it out for one year sounds like something an addict would do. “Celebrating” makes me think about rewarding myself with a 22-ounce Double-IPA, thank you very much. So, no celebrations don’t seemed called for. I did tell her I felt I needed to write about it. That means if you are reading this, you are celebrating with me, and thank you for coming (cue fireworks!).

I don’t want to recount everything I wrote about last December. You can read about that here. However, one constant has been my therapist’s admonition that I needed to shift the focus of my thinking to concentrating not on what I had lost or given up, but rather on what I had gained.

Some gains I have made are quantifiable, but we need to do the math. Let’s say that I used to drink 300 out of 365 days per year. That would mean I took roughly 65 days off per year due to illness, guilt, or hangover recovery. On the days I drank, I drank between 2 and 4 beers, so let’s call it an average of 3 beers a day. That means I consumed about 900 beers per year. At roughly 150 calories per beer, I can approximate that I saved 135,000 calories over the course of the year. Now, if I had eaten a lean diet and not replaced some of those calories by indulging in pastries and chocolates of all kinds, I’d probably be down to 75 pounds. However, I have lost a solid 10-12 pounds and the ever-growing beer gut has vanished.

I never used to keep track of how much I was spending on beer between the six-packs I’d drink at home and the tabs I would pay at a bar. I really didn’t want to know. However, if a beer from a 6 pack ran 2-3 dollars and from a bar was 6-8 dollars, let’s just guess that my average cost per beer ended up being $4. That means I saved $3,600 over the past year.

Best of all, I feel healthier and happier than anytime I can remember. Yes, I’ve struggled through some depressive periods over the past 12 months, but I revel in the changes I have made in my life.

I go to bed every night knowing that I will not wake up with a hangover and the guilt that would come with it. I can almost always remember exactly what I said and did the night before, something that increasingly would elude me on drinking nights. I feel stronger as I’ve pushed myself into more challenging hikes around the county and trying to be on the trail two to three days a week. I practice yoga and meditation 5-6 days a week and marvel at how the importance of that practice has grown for me over time. There seems to be a part of my brain that was always thinking about drinking that gets to rest and dedicate itself to other things.

Do I miss it? Yes–every day. I still feel jealous when I’m surrounded by drinkers at a bar or a restaurant, and I’m making may way through another bottle of Pellegrino.

Back when I wrote the initial article, I was already hedging–assuming I would cheat occasionally. What could it hurt, right? But, it’s just been easier to stick to my new habit and continue to build on the gains I have made as a person. Nothing about alcohol ever helped me be stronger, smarter, or kinder. I think I’ve made some strides in those areas. I don’t want to give them up now.

Before I sat down to write this I pulled on a pair of sweatpants. Backwards.

I could just stop there, but there’s more. Anyone can make a simple mistake. Recently I have been on a quest for more thoughtful and sophisticated ways to screw up–like two months back when I was doing the bills, and following my system, I wrote down the amounts for all of the bills I pay on-line carefully in my checkbook. Somehow though, I never made it over to the computer to actually get into the “bill pay” page and get the payments sent out. I sussed it all out when “past due” notices began to sprout from my mailbox like an unwelcome weed infestation. There are also some months where I pay all my bills twice. It just helps to round things out.

I know what you are thinking. He’s losing it. Dementia.

Normally, I’d go straight for that diagnosis also. That and brain tumor are my go-to thoughts if I get anything worse than a hangnail.

But at the time all of this happened, I was struggling with chronic dizziness (probably a brain tumor, right?). It isn’t incapacitating, but I can feel kind of “foggy” at times. It’s one reason I haven’t been writing of late. I first went to see my doctor about it in April, but I’d been having problems for at least a month before. It’s not the first time I’ve had this issue, but it was being so persistent that I decided to get my doctor involved.

That started a marathon round of appointments. He checked me over and sent me to a head and neck specialist and recommended I see a vestibular physical therapist (yeah, who knew there was such a thing).

The head and neck specialist did a couple of tests and deemed that whatever was causing it was probably cardiovascular or neurological. The physical therapist spent two sessions making me do a series of bizarre exercises trying to make me dizzy (or more dizzy than I was at the moment) and failed miserably. Shrug.

Went back to my primary care doctor who thought I should go see a head and neck specialist (wait, didn’t I already do that?). I ended up seeing exactly the same woman, who did exactly the same test, and came to exactly the same conclusions. I decided to check in with my neurologist. He suggested I go to the head and neck department.

I sought help from my acupuncturist who concluded there were clouds of smoke in my brain and that I needed to stay away from television, politics, basically, the world.

My local health provider held a small ceremony for me where I was given a certificate of achievement for my tenacity in unsuccessfully trying to find the cause of the problem. There was cake and everything (I’m making that part up).

Finally, I decided to quit listening to everyone and pulled down the box where I keep my daily meds and started looking at everything I was taking to see if there was anything I could eliminate, anything that might be the culprit.

Most of my meds are “old dude” regulars for blood pressure, cholesterol, and a couple more exotic ones. I take some Chinese herbs from my acupuncturist also, you know, for the whole “smoke in the brain” thing.

Oh, and I’d been taking Melatonin. When I stopped drinking nearly a year ago, I had trouble sleeping though the night. I was waking up more and more often at odd hours and finding it impossible to get back to sleep. Two in the morning is just not a fun time to find yourself awake and yet still groggy and exhausted.

When Mary suggested Melatonin, I thought, sure! It’s over-the-counter and therefore “safe”. It worked great! Magic! Later, when she mentioned that maybe I wasn’t supposed to take it continuously, I dismissed the suggestion. Pssssh. After all, I bought it at Sprouts. It was doing exactly what I wanted it to do. I didn’t even read the label until the day I began to examine all my meds.

Yes, the label that stated “If any adverse reactions occur, immediately stop using this product and consult a doctor” and “Limit use to two months with a break of one week.” I was checking out this information, written clearly on the bottle, after taking it every night for, oh, ten months straight.

It gets worse. I googled Melatonin and looked up possible drug interactions. Under “serious interactions” I found one of my daily medications. Possible side effects–dizziness. And the timeline fit. The dizziness had begun shortly after I started taking it. I just never made the connection.

MOTHERFORKING MORON!

So I quit taking it right away and the dizziness did not go away immediately, but at least the insomnia returned. It actually took three weeks before I was symptom free.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t do any permanent brain damage or anything although, you never know. I enjoyed 4-5 weeks of mental clarity without the low-grade sense that my brain was slowly rocking or spinning occasionally. I was quite proud of myself for chasing down my own stupidity.

And then the dizziness came back (“heavy sigh”). What are you gonna do? I’m just going to enjoy the ride for now. I’ll go through the pill box and see if I’ve got something else I can toss out. Maybe I can put my yard blower up against one ear and see if I can blow out some of that smoke on my brain.

I don’t enjoy reminders of my age although it’s hard to miss the signs when I face the mirror every morning. I certainly never used to keep my very own blood pressure monitor tucked behind my laptop on my desk just so I can check it every now and then for my entertainment.

I don’t feel as old as the calendar tells me that I am. I have a few limitations on my physical activity, but most of them are mental limitations–fear of failure or injury. Learning how to surf sounds like fun on some days. On others days it sounds like an invitation to the emergency room.

I can’t seem to shake the tendonitis that I have in both hands which may hamper or end my days as a guitarist although that career was always teetering on a lack of talent and a certain laissez-faire attitude toward actually practicing.

But speaking of the guitar, I do still admire the skill of others and so last night when my wife and I were enjoying the warm evening at one of our local go-to restaurants, we were pleasantly surprised by the live music on the patio. The artist was an older guy, probably our age, who looked like a refugee from the ’60’s. He was just a gentle soul with long, blonde hair who sang simple folk songs that all sounded as if they came right out of the playlist of my teenage years. Every now and then he’d ramp up a cover of a song by Neil Young or Bob Dylan and rouse the friendly group who had hung out to listen to him through the end of his second set.

Toward the end of the evening he began playing a song I had never heard, but as I listened to the lyrics it felt as though the writer had ripped a page out of my life and thoughts over the past months. The guitarist told me after the show that the song was “If We Were Vampires” by Jason Isbell and that it had been voted 2018 Americana Song of the Year by someone.

The song is a reflection on growing old with someone special so as I sat listening to it with the girl I met when we were 16, the girl I didn’t begin dating until after high school, and the woman to whom I’ve been married for almost 45 years, the words were poignant (although they lose something without the music, I suspect):

It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever

Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone

Maybe we’ll get forty years together

But one day I’ll be gone

Or one day you’ll be gone

If we were vampires and death was a joke

We’d go out on the sidewalk and smoke

And laugh at all the lovers and their plans

I wouldn’t feel the need to hold your hand

I don’t wake up and begin my day by dwelling on mortality. I mostly think about how good that first cup of coffee is going to taste, and how I really need to get down to the shop and get new tires put on my car. But I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t noticed that 65 is a big number, and that I’m increasingly aware of the very finite nature of life.

I always imagine I’ve got maybe 20 or so good years left and let’s face it, that’s a lot of years. But that number seems smaller when I realize I’ve already burned through three times as many plus a few.

The song concentrates on the relationship and how it has sustained the couple and it made me think how meaningless life might have been for me this past 40 years without the life I’ve had with Mary and about how I would not want to grow old alone:

Maybe time running out is a gift

I’ll work hard ’til the end of my shift

And give you every second I can find

And hope it isn’t me who’s left behind

I actually like finding music that hits too close to home. It’s nice to know that others think about these things.

It’s nicer still to hear her working in the room next door as I’m writing this. And that she’ll be nearby when I fall asleep tonight. And that hers will be the first face I see tomorrow morning and in the many mornings left to come.

I don’t think of myself as a fussy person, but I’m pretty sure that I’m perceived that way by people around me. I think that perception comes from the fact that I develop habits and preferences and, in the absence of other options, better options, I will stick to those established habits and preferences.

For example, once I secure my cup of Starbucks coffee for the morning, I sit down to read the paper. When I get to a certain part of the front page, I get up and toast an English muffin which I slather with almond butter and blackberry jam. I like certain brands of the almond butter and jam so I stock up on them when they are on sale. That means I’m thrifty, right? Hardly fussy. Not even close to being OCD.

However, I find I’m really weighed down when anything around me isn’t working as it should. If a faucet is dripping, or a door is binding up, I struggle. I feel this immense weight until I can address the problem. I literally feel lighter and happier when I’m able to tighten the right valve or smooth the side of the door properly.

So when the “check engine” light started glowing on my dashboard, I immediately began to feel this unreasonable sense of dread. I’d like to put a piece of black tape over it so I just can’t see it, but it’s like the dripping faucet–I HAVE to take care of the problem because all peace and happiness has left me and will stay away until it is repaired.

I’ve owned cars for long enough that I should be able to deal with it calmly. For example, I know with this particular light:

I got the appointment at the dealer, got the car dropped off and went home to wait for the expensive phone call. The service representative finally called me to explain that a fuel sensor inside the gas tank needed to be replaced which would involve the mechanics pulling out the backseat so they could access the gas tank and replace the sensor. Oh, and by the way it was impossible to do the repair without some gas being spilled on the outside of the tank. Not to worry–they’d clean up everything nice and tidy for me by the time I picked it up.

So, when I showed up to pick up the car, I payed my $1000 and was very happy to see that the “check engine” light had been retired as I started it up. But as I began to drive home, I was almost overcome by wave after wave of a gasoline smell coming from the backseat of the car. I turned around and wheeled the car back to the dealer where the service rep reassured me that the excess gas would burn off within a couple of days. Totally normal.

A week later I was still getting whiffs of the gaseous odor and returned the car to the rep to have it checked out. After he and a mechanic took it for a spin, I was informed that they couldn’t smell any gas at all. As I walked out the the lot to retrieve my car, I could smell the reek from 5 feet away.

I’m fussy, right? I dragged the rep from out of his cubicle and made him stand with me and enjoy the fumes emanating from my vehicle. He looked puzzled and thoughtful. “Oh, that smell. I guess that could be gas.” We decided he would keep it for another day and have the mechanics rip the seats back out and double check to be sure everything was properly sealed and he agreed to have the back half of the car shampooed just in case the odor was now coming from the seats.

The next day, he called and assured me all was well, and I could come and retrieve my vehicle once again. And, believe me, I wanted nothing more than to believe that all was well, that they had fixed the problem, and that hey, maybe the whole thing was just in my head.

As I drove off, the toxic shampoo they had used in the back of the car was almost as bad as the gas fumes had been, and I drove through the night with the windows down. Sure enough, before I had made it home, the gas smell was back.

At this point, I’m not angry–just indecisive. I’m not sure whether to call the dealer back for the fourth time or just to have a nervous breakdown. I can no longer tell if my car has a problem, or if I have a problem. I’ve made four trips to the dealer, consumed hours with this problem preying on my mind, and by now, I’m starting to think that maybe I’m defective.

Then I remember this older gentleman who owned a little car shop called The Little Car Shoppe nearby. He specializes in BMWs, but had done some work for me years before on my daughter’s Acura. I called him and explained my situation and he seemed intrigued. “Bring it down,” was all he said and then hung up.

This guy is the guy you always hope you will find to work on your vehicle. He’s quiet and thorough and doesn’t bullshit you about the cost. I usually don’t even ask because I trust his expertise, and I know he will warn me if it’s going to be extraordinarily expensive. I’ve never heard music being played in his shop. He always keeps the radio tuned to NPR. Gotta love that.

By the end of the afternoon he’d found the seal that the guys at the dealership had failed to replace properly. He had to chase down a new one and asked me to give him one more day to see if he could find me the best deal on one. By the next afternoon, he called to say he was done. When I got there, he showed me the dirty and pitted seal that the dealer had tried to get by with and which had allowed the fumes to escape.

With a smile, he let me know the problem was fixed in the nicest possible way when he said, “I sure don’t want to see you back here with it.”

This adventure is the kind of thing that sucks the soul out of me. It makes me question both my judgement and my sanity. When I let it, it consumes me. I can’t stop thinking about this “tragic” development in my life when actually it is mostly just a simple, but annoying, bump in the road.

At some point, I did manage to step back from it and get some perspective. I told myself, “It’s a car problem. It’s unusual, but there’s got to be an explanation. In a few days this will get sorted out and I won’t have to think about it at all.” Why it was so hard to get that perspective quickly and easily after all of these years, I’m not sure. Maybe it was all the gas fumes that were scrambling my brain.

Sure, sometimes I feel under-appreciated. Who doesn’t? The many thankless tasks that I complete that go unnoticed and unthanked–it happens.

But most recently, I’ve noticed how much credit I get for things that I just don’t deserve. I feel like an imposter. The general consensus is that I’m generous, “a nice guy.” But I know my darkness. I feel like the character William, from the film Almost Famous who explodes when the character Penny Lane declares him to be “sweet.” “Where do you get sweet? I am dark and mysterious, and pissed off! And I could be very dangerous to all of you. You should know that about me.”

Yeah, that’s me. Dark, mysterious, pissed off. Just this week I purposely drove 50 yards or so down a one-way street the wrong way just to to avoid going around the block. Dangerous.

Most recently I got way too much praise for something I did out of sheer impatience. I was standing in line at a Kaiser pharmacy behind a young man who had to be at least 18 years old, but appeared to have no clue about the process for ordering or paying for medication that he apparently needed right away. He showed up to get the prescription with no money and no credit card. The attendant let him use the phone to call his parents thinking they could give a credit card number over the phone to cover the co-pay. For some reason this was no longer (if it ever had been) allowed. There was a lot of shrugging and “well, I don’t know what to tell you” going on and they were about to let him make another phone call while the line continued to build when I called out loudly to the cashier, “Is this about a $10.00 co-pay?”

She looked up at me, startled, unsure if she could share such privileged information, and so I asked her again speaking more slowly and more clearly. She finally answered in the affirmative, and I leaned forward and slapped a $10 bill on the counter and said to the kid, “I got you covered on this one.”

What appears to be naked and unexpected generosity is often confusing, so it took a second for her and the boy to realize that I was willing, without question, to pay the toll for the kid’s medicine. Finally, the boy thanked me profusely, and the cashier told me repeatedly what a nice person I was for doing this. The guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder. “You paying for him, man? You’re like, paying it forward. Man, that is really cool.”

What I was paying for was convenience and my own impatience. It was well worth the ten bucks to get to the front of the line and not have to wait any longer for the Kaiser people to figure out what to do with this kid. but the people who witnessed the transaction were left with the impression that I was just an exemplary guy. Extra credit, see?

After keeping the same eyeglass frames for 8 years, I changed them up recently. One friend told me they made me look “edgy”–my true self becoming more apparent.

I also jaywalk–frequently.

For now, I’ll stick with the generally false impression I’ve created. It helps me to navigate the world with a good reputation. Only you, my 12 faithful readers, will know the real truth.

I’ve wanted to write this piece for some time, but I wanted to start with:

“It’s OK. I’m feeling much better now.”

I didn’t expect it would be July before that happened.

I did not see this one coming. Near the end of March, I was about to write a piece about how well the experience of sobriety was going with one of the most remarkable things being a nearly euphoric sense of well being. I had just finished a 30-day writing challenge and had gotten to spend five days on the Oregon coast. I was physically active and had my volunteer work going to keep me engaged. I felt great.

And then, everything seemed to go south on me. Suddenly, I began to feel a sense of isolation and anger began to build up inside of me. I was plagued both by self-pity and a sense of inadequacy. I didn’t have friends to be with. I no longer had the comfort of a bar or a brewery to use to pass the time and enjoy the boozy camaraderie.

I can’t explain the weird reversal of my my emotional state. There was not an easily identifiable trigger. I simply drifted into a state of withdrawal and anger bordering on a kind of rage–rage at the news, rage at nearly everyone I encountered on the road, simmering anger at every person in every bar or restaurant I entered who was allowed to enjoy their beers, when I had to deny myself. Was it their second or third? Why were they allowed to toy so casually with their health when I could not?

I have been seeing a therapist who specializes in addiction medicine and I saw her twice during the month of May when things were going badly. Before the appointment begins, I have to take an iPad and click through a multiple-choice questionnaire about my mental state and how I’ve been doing since the last visit–have I been drinking, have I taken drugs, have I felt depressed, had I had thoughts of harming myself–you get the idea.

I feel like a kid in class when I do the iPad thing, wanting to get good scores for my efforts at abstinence but also wanting to be honest about how bad this bout of depression had been. When I got to the question about harming myself, I had to press the button for “once or twice” instead of the usual “never.”

I had not actually contemplated suicide over the past two months. I hadn’t started to imagine how I would do it or make a plan. It wasn’t like that. But I was feeling a deep sense of weariness, a feeling of being overwhelmed by the effort it took to say “no” to alcohol every day, and to simply cope with everyday life. Dealing with a minor car problem seemed epically difficult. The multitude of unfinished projects around the house made me feel surrounded by failure even though they were dwarfed by the overall beauty of our house and our yard. I hate to use a Hamlet reference (it’s so former-English-teacher-ish), but when he thinks about death he imagines the peace that comes from ending the “heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks/That flesh is heir to.” A respite from all of those “thousand shocks” was all that led me to momentary thoughts of being able to go to sleep and not get up to once again have to fight that feeling of being overwhelmed.

It is as hard for me to describe clawing out of a depression as it is to explain how I fell into it, but two things stand out as I look back at how I began to heal.

Since I retired, I’ve been a casual and occasional hiker around the county of San Diego even going so far as to join a hiking group that meets up once a week. I was far from passionate about it. However, inspired by my niece who has set a goal of 100 rigorous hikes during 2018, I started upping my interest as she and I began to meet up occasionally, and she introduced me to more and more challenging peaks to climb. As I started to get stronger, I started to push myself to take on these tougher hikes 2-3 times a week. The hikes became easier and my body began to recover more quickly between them. I found that the hikes literally cleared my mind as I was immersed in the natural terrain and the physical exertion I was putting in.

But that kind of healing takes time and 6-8 hours a week of physical activity was not going to, by itself, be enough. When I was still deeply mired in feeling bad, I sat on the edge of our bed with my wife and admitted the obvious–something that she clearly already knew–that I was really struggling with depression once again. She did the best of all things. She let me talk through my confusion, my anger, my sadness and just acknowledged and affirmed what I was feeling. When I was all talked out, she held me close and we just quit talking and I could feel something melt away inside of me. I can’t explain it. There was no advice, no insight–just warmth and love and reassurance. It was as if a boil had been lanced and the healing began almost immediately.

When I first wrote about my decision to abstain from alcohol back in November of ‘17, I recognized the the decision was going to force me to confront some substantial issues. At the time, I wrote, “Alcohol had simply helped me paper over feelings of isolation or purposelessness or inadequacy. Now, I need to confront those feelings for what they are and see what kind of growth can come from that.”

Maybe that is what I was going through here. Maybe this was a time of growth and reassessment of my purpose and the things I need to work on to stay connected to the people in my life. I’m working on all of those things.

Just this morning, I took the outgoing mail down to the box and dropped in in. Included with the monthly bills was a form letter to my former school district declining their offer to continue working for them as a substitute teacher. I finally decided to stop teaching–entirely.

When I retired, I refused to sign up for any classes or do any kind of structured activity for the first six months. I had been in school for 53 straight years, first as a student and then as a teacher, and was delighted to not have a daily time schedule. I was happy that I no longer had to wait until the bell rang to go pee.

I was as surprised as anyone when I did the paperwork to become a substitute teacher after that six months passed. I quickly discovered that I needed to put down limits. I’d only sub for English or social studies teachers (subjects I knew pretty well), only at two schools where I had friends, and only for teachers who I respected because I knew they knew how to run a classroom. Every time I made an exception, I ended up regretting it.

For the first few years, going back to my school, was a pleasure. It was fun to see my ex-colleagues and meet new teachers. There was a cadre of former students still there who knew me because I had been their freshman English teacher, so I was not an entirely unknown quantity.

Going to the other school was a test, having taught for 36 years in one place, but among the groups I subbed for, I quickly became just another teacher and a sub that they (usually) respected. You have to understand, the pool of competent subs is so thin that showing up with a level of confidence and expertise was often something kids appreciated. I was shocked at the number of times kids actually thanked me for being their sub that day.

I learned to always ask the teachers I subbed for to email me lesson plans the night before when possible, so I could go in feeling prepared and even read what the kids had read if we were going to do something text-related. Getting to interact with the kids without having to do any significant preparation and then walk away without any papers to grade was wonderful, and getting in front of a classroom again felt really good.

But then there were days when I’d end up showing the same film for 5 hours, or administering tests for the entire day. I’d feel like the clock-watching students, just anxious for the day to be over.

I started turning down so many jobs that the demand began to dry up. I had grown so used to spending time in my yard, or taking my daily walks, or going hiking that I hated being required to be indoors. I didn’t like being on my feet all day and coming home feeling exhausted with my back aching. Taking sub jobs meant I’d miss yoga classes or time with my hiking group or acupuncture appointments I’d been looking forward to.

So, last year, I put the word out that I was pretty sure I was done. I volunteered for a couple of school-related things to help out friends–proctoring AP tests, being a part of a panel for senior-project presentations–but that was it.

This year, no calls at all. I guess I am done as a teacher. I’m not an entrepreneur. I don’t need the time to start a new career, but I do want to have the time to learn new things and maybe become good at something that’s not teaching. I gave 40 years to teaching. I think it’s time to let it go.

Being retired not only gives me more time to become irritated over fairly mundane things (see Grumpy Old Man), but it also provides me the time and opportunity to do something about them.

So, day after day, when I saw a small, dilapidated RV parked along the frontage road that leads to the road that leads to my house, I became convinced that this eyesore was either abandoned or that even worse, someone was using it as a residence. I contacted the local sheriffs who told me to contact the Highway Patrol whose non-emergency number is always busy. Somehow, though, when I wasn’t paying attention, the eyesore disappeared.

However, the owners left behind a pile of refuse, and as I looked up and down the frontage road, I realized just how trashy the 150 yards or so that I drive past several times a day had become. The dirt pathway along a fence that parallels a freeway entrance is a walkway for many middle school kids who frequent the local Starbucks and the convenience store on the corner and leads to two or three apartment buildings down the way.

Initially, I thought I was just going to clean up after the RV dwellers so I grabbed a couple of trash bags, a rake, a pair of gloves and went down to survey the damage. What I found was that they had jettisoned two wooden valances and an enormous pile of trimmed cactus. I’m not kidding. Huge chunks of cacti, all cut and cleaned, were dumped in a muddy pile. I loaded the mess into the back of my SUV and carted it home to my trash bins.

But that wasn’t enough for me. Spending some time down by the fence made me notice just how awful all of that trash looked and how badly it needed to be cleaned up.

I became a man on a mission. I bought a fresh box of trash bags, spread some plastic down in the back of my vehicle and decided to go to work on the problem. It felt fun to have a project like this. Smelly, but fun. I spent about an hour a day for four days to get the area cleaned to my satisfaction. The typical haul on each day was 2-3 bags of weeds and trash.

The variety of trash was impressive. I found the kinds of things you’d expect–lots of drink containers, fast food packaging, cigarette butts, and plastic crap of all kinds. In addition there was clothing, a pillow, many small liquor bottles, and one used condom. My neighbors are clearly not intimidated by the single sign that threatens them with a $1000 fine for littering. All in all, I ended up with about 10 bags of trash.

As menial as it was, the work was incredibly satisfying. Every day as I drive by, I survey the work I have accomplished and take note of any new litter that has begun to accumulate. I suspect I will become like the guy who purportedly used to spend his days painting the Golden Gate Bridge from one end to the other and back year after year.

And while this may be a Sisyphean task, it feels good to see the neighborhood look a little cleaner. Today, as I was finishing up, two different strangers stopped to introduce themselves and thank me for the work that I was doing. It was not important to me to get the recognition, but it did let me know that others had seen the problem and appreciated that someone took some action.

While it will take some continued effort to keep it clean, I now feel a sense of ownership. I’ve started to keep my eye out for other areas nearby that are showing signs of neglect that may need a little love and attention. If I keep this up, I may need to get a cape and a secret identity–maybe take to cleaning up only under the cover of darkness.

People will wake up in the morning to marvel and whisper, “Trash Man has been here!”